Moon.
Biography
Armstrong was born in
Wapakoneta,
Ohio and served in the
Korean War as a jet fighter pilot. He
attended Purdue University, where he was a
member of a
fraternity, Phi Delta Theta, and received a
Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical
Engineering in 1955. Armstrong then became a
civilian test pilot for
NASA and piloted the 4,000
mi/h (6,400 km/h)
X-15 rocket plane. Armstrong was selected by
NASA as an astronaut in
1962.
Neil Armstrong commanded
Gemini 8, which achieved the first docking
of two orbiting spacecraft, in
1966. He served as commander of the backup
crew for the
Apollo 8 lunar orbital mission in
1968.
In 1969, Neil commanded the
Apollo 11 lunar landing mission.
Neil Armstrong narrowly escaped death during training in
a crash of the lunar landing training vehicle (LLTV).
During the actual mission, he took manual
control of the
Lunar Module (LM) Eagle and piloted
it away from a rocky area to a safe landing. His
first words from the Moon were, "Houston,
Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed."
Several hours later he climbed out of the LM and
became the
first person to walk on the Moon, and the
first man to flub a scripted line on the moon,
with the words,
- "The Eagle has landed."
- The first landing on the Moon.
- (hear original audio
[1]
- .wav 173 kb)
-
- "That's one small step for man, one
giant leap for mankind." - Stepping out
onto the moon for the first time. (He had intended to
say "That's one small step for a
man, one giant leap for mankind.")
- (hear original audio
[2] - .wav 260 kb)
-
After retirement from NASA he taught engineering
at the University of Cincinnati. Neil Armstrong served on
the Presidential commission which investigated
the
Challenger accident.
